More than ninety percent of pasture and cropland in the basin receives supplemental water to make the land viable for agriculture. This irrigated land extends across some 3.2 million acres within the basin, while water exported from the basin reportedly helps irrigate another 2.5 million acres in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and southern California. Irrigating this much land requires a lot of water, consuming roughly 70 percent of the basin’s water supply (not including evaporation or exports).
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While most of the Colorado River Basin states have seen decreases in acreage devoted to agriculture since then, they have also gained alfalfa-planted acreage. Hay production has gone up significantly in Arizona and Utah alongside a steep climb in hay exports. Yes, a lot of that water-guzzling alfalfa is going to feed cattle and horses in China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and elsewhere.
Is there a suggestion for change in there somewhere? What?
There needs to be a cultural shift. Everywhere Mormons settled, they irrigated everything which was not typical of most European descended farms. So, all of Utah has extensive irrigation projects, as well as places like Mesa Arizona, Las Vegas (believe it or not it was a Mormon settlement) lots of California, etc. And it isn’t just farms, even single family residences are irrigated, even in places like Mesa.
So people in those areas are accustomed to using vast amounts of water and thus you see water-thirsty crops and lush yards in the middle of the desert. John Oliver pointed out per capita water consumption in Utah is much higher than neighboring states. A primary reason is that in Utah most water is subsidized with property taxes, so water is artificially cheap.
A cracking good book about the American west and its water is “Cadillac Desert” by Marc Reisner and published in 1986. Although the subject matter sounds dry (no pun intended. Well, maybe a little intended), it is a page-turner. The whole story is just nuts. Think the movie “Chinatown.”
Suffice to say, every warning sign was in place, and illuminated in giant flashing red letters. But the power behind water, and the associated corruption behind that power is massive. Will be interesting to watch.
As with electric cars. Nothing to see here. Just continue on with fossil fuels. Continue growing hay to export water to China. Maybe the government should spend all their resources keeping illegals from crossing the boarder. Maybe build a wall. That’s the real problem right?
Syke
The author of that article just came out with a book called Sagebrush Empire. Jonathan Thompson.
Cultural shifts can be great or horrid, but what is needed is an end to the idiot idea that the precious water in aquifers belongs to whatever property owner above has the capital to install massive pumps in deep wells and fund the first year of electricity for pumping (after that it is gravy train and laughing to the bank). They pretend that they are merely poor farmers or ranchers producing broccoli or hay for a hungry world. Of course, Nestle’s insanely profitable bottled water business is simply the end result.
Nothing provides stronger evidence that governments world wide are owned by those destroying the future to profit massively in the present.
Glen Canyon Dam drowned one of the most magnificent places on Earth at enormous cost. Even as a “renewable energy source” it was known to be idiotic because if all had gone according to plan it would have been silted into uselessness.
As a child I visited by raft two years before the flooding destroyed it. I hope that some of the wonders have survived now that the waters are falling due to drought.
A staggering example of insanely shortsighted arrogant greed and stupidity.
OK, but how do you fairly divide a limited resource? Who gets first choice to the limited resource? Cities that continue to grow their populations in the middle of the dessert (and have lots of voters)?
Or traditional agriculture that has been a major contributor to the local economy long before all the people arrived?
How do you tell a land owner what he can do with his land? (I think this is an especially sensitive issue in the West. It goes back at least to the barbed wire wars.)
There were people here “long before all the people arrived”. We had no problem getting rid of them and taking what we want. God please don’t give us another Phoenix. I’d take another hay field instead.
“How do you tell a land owner what he can do with his land.” This is the problem in the intermountain west. It’s not just his land. It’s the public resources found on the PUBLIC LANDS that are needed to support his private business. This is water, forage for animals, minerals to be mined etc. You can go the root of Cliven Bundy and just not pay.
I live in a side canyon of Glen Canyon 70 miles upstream from the reservoir (its not a lake). The canyon is recovering as the water recedes.
“A staggering example of insanely shortsighted arrogant greed and stupidity.” Amen brother.
The book I suggested is the best on this subject I have read in a long time.
Urban life uses far far less water than either industry (2nd place) or agriculture (first place).
Water rights should be taken over by the people as a whole (and yes, with some level of compensation to current water right owners to be struggled over).
What then? I dunno, but a good starting point might be:
sufficient water for luxurious daily human use should be apportioned to cities and counties in accordance with how many humans live in each
more water sufficient for already existent industrial use should be similarly allocated.
more water should be auctioned off
significant water should be held in reserve as an asset rapidly increasing in value for the benefit of our successors.
Go ahead and argue. I may as well argue for mandatory harvesting of sperm to use with a plan followed by vasectomies for all pubescent boys… (running and ducking)
OK, but how do you fairly divide a limited resource? Who gets first choice to the limited resource? Cities that continue to grow their populations in the middle of the dessert (and have lots of voters)?
Better idea: revise water rights.
The way the relevant laws and contracts are written in most of the western US, a lot of farmers have the right to take a certain amount of water (if it’s available, otherwise all the water that is available) at a certain point and dump it on the ground.
If they don’t dump it on the ground, they don’t have the right to take it.
They could grow the same crops with much less water if they went to the bother and expense of installing modern irrigation systems… but there’s no benefit to them for doing so.
Let them sell the water, within their rights, that they don’t dump on the ground. So they can benefit from saving water.
I would be thrilled if a free market in water could be established (lots of tough details but i think doable). But the current owners are mostly dead set against it.
You should read “Encounters with the Archdruid” by John McPhee.
I very much enjoyed his Annals of the Former World about geology (as he travels west on I-80). My favorite chapter is on Wyoming, ‘Rising From the Plains’. In addition to geology it has a lot on growing up in Wyoming around the turn of the century. Should be read if you watched the Kevin Costner Yellowstone series. It even has a tidbit on Butch Cassidy.
